My Incredibly Important American Identity (a "poem")

((WARNING: This might be  is a load of sh-t.))

I learned to hate the president
when he was going out of office,
about a year before the next one was
elected.

I learned to feel entitled
as a child of a generation,
to my voice shouting louder than
my "elders"
because it was my voice and
it "needed to be heard".

I learned so very recently,
it is my flag-given,
American right
to slack off in the face
of my two hard-working
parents,
the right to demand
respect without
ever earning it.

I learned the life of
"first-world problems"
and how not to care
when I'm eating/wearing/benefiting
from the slavery of my fellow
human beings
on the same planet.

I learned to blame
the place I've been raised in
the things the TV taught me.
I learned how to abuse my freedoms,
at an early age,
and how to manipulate,
how to compete,
to obtain what I wanted.
I learned how to get dolls
and chocolate,
and now, I know
how to obtain green rectangles
made in mints at the center of the universe.

Oh, I've learned to scorn,
I've learned to picket,
I've learned how to argue
using glimmering fallacies.
I've learned to blame
and blame and blame.
I've learned to bow to hierarchy,
I've learned how to conform
to expectations of society.

I've learned to live with irreconcilable
values.
Where I say and internalize
what is said,
but by example,
do not follow in action.
"Give me your tired, give me your poor,"
kick the 47% and every other
human fighting to be free
back through the border door.

I've learned to embrace my privileges
and milk them for all their worth.
I've learned to say,
What's mine is mine,
and how to withhold from everyone else,
because what belongs to me,
by inheritance or work,
belongs to me
and I will not share,
I learned that when I was two.
No matter how much it'll help you,
those things are mine alone.

Oh, I learned hypocrisy
from the lowest age.
And I learned that the country I was born in,
is a planet all its own;
the rest of earth is just a moon,
encircling this place.
I learned that I am also
a planet
and everyone around me
revolve
and revolve
and revolve.

Master of the Self-Sabotage (a venty, un-poetic poem)

I throw rotting red fruit from the stands,

when the actress does poorly,

or when she does well. 

I tell her go home, 

get a life, 

stop living through 

elaborate masks, 

old, worn, costumes,

everyone sees through her disguise. 

And even when convinced, 

I know she knows the truth. 

I wrote to you, 

friend,

sang to you,

I told you everything I thought

you'd need to know.

I laid out a history of

my own mistakes,

and you have no caution.

Dear, I tried to tell you,

and this is my greatest skill,

the only thing I've mastered, Love, is 

procrastination and self-sabotage.

I'm great at it, you see, 

The solution always seems, 

remove the disguise,

the last second, 

take the rose-tinted glasses from your eyes,

look at me in every dark and blinding tone,

assess me without shielding yourself

from the danger that you're in. 

There are no UV-rays from me, 

but it's been said, that 

one may get burned when playing with fire.

Blazes get out of hand, 

ravage the land that a 

tiny match might touch, 

and it might enter the theatre, 

where the actress takes the center stage,

and it seems the ceiling opened up, 

the gasoline she left on the rafters will fall, 

and all will go up in flames. 

Oh yes, 

I see you in the front seats, 

and you were watching her. 

I'm sorry you got into this. 

It seems we'll all get burned. 

Sunlight: "Interruption" (continued)

The man tensed at the sound of his name. It seemed so intentional when she said it, so necessary, polite. He pushed down his own thoughts of her name. The thoughts of her in several years' passing, shyness and smiles and laughter and tears. A glimpse of her in her old garden, at her parents' house, near the ground, watering and weeding and planting. Her pride in the glorious blossoms within the greenhouse at her school, the single time he'd visited.

"How... have you been?"  she finally pressed on. He could tell she was hesitant, and he could see what kind of answer she expected.

"Fine, I guess," he replied. "Dad finally got another job. Just a few hours a week, filing at this one office, and he's doing pretty well there, I think. Most of the time I can drive him, but sometimes we use this one service in town."

He paused. She stared at her glass, as usual, looking somewhat guilty. He looked at the black bottle with its German label, and drank more of his own, as if eager to finish the bottle. It was a luxury that he didn't often indulge in. 

"That's good," the woman replied. 

Her eyes gave away her discontent with his answer. But she was too polite to ask any further. The young man noted the photographs on the wall of the staircase near the kitchen. John with twenty dark children wearing an aid organization's t-shirts. Amira in a garden, looking much like she did when the young man had known her. Then several shots of the couple, some casually taken with a group of faces unfamiliar to Damir, others seemingly professional with the couple standing perfectly    by railroad tracks and beautiful old streets, flower shops. Sitting at an outdoor table of a café, twin ivory mugs at their sides, as each stared at the other with bright expressions, animated, as if engaged in lively conversation. 

"John should be home soon," she said, after their long pause, rinsing out her glass with the low-pressure faucet. 

"I should go," he replied.

Amira turned from the sink, to glance at her guest, as he turned toward the door strategically.

"Are you sure?"

He nodded, making a motion of fixing his jacket, feeling for the pills again, with his back to the young woman. He listened as she hesitated, taking a few steps toward him.

"Well... if you must go... I suppose..."

He waited. 

"Look, you don't have to leave yet," she said, the glass in her hand now, as she dried it with a towel, standing beside him.

"I mean, unless you_"

"I might have a little time."

"Yeah. You should stay. We... we really haven't seen each other in a while."

"No, we haven't."

He sat back down on their odd couch and looked at the window with its intricately designed curtains, all purples and oranges and deep blues, but with some loose threads hanging out their ends.

"I know, they don't match everything else. John and I put them together a few months ago... we were going to add something to the edges, but we haven't gotten around to it yet."

"I like them," Damir replied. 

"Really? We didn't even dye them the way we were taught_"

"They remind me of my mom's paintings," he said. He stood to return to the kitchen, where his glass and the bottle remained on the counter. Amira followed.

"Under the kitchen sink, Amira?"

"We usually use that for cooking, actually. If you want anything else, we have a cellar downstairs and_"

"That's fine_"

She stepped away from him, and though he was about to protest, he said nothing. It was simply social. And as long as he did not get an explanation of how and where and when and where they purchased their wine or liquor or home-brewed beer, this would only be a brief, continuation of a casual, social drink with a friend whom he hadn't seen in several months.

Amira returned with a bottle of wine. He could hardly hear her climb the stairs, with her care in the choice she had made.

He appreciated her easy and secret rebellion in whatever "dietary" repression she had likely been subject to as of late.

She refrained from telling the story of this particular action, as she poured new glasses, almost remorseful.

The young man could see their small stone sitting area just outside the sliding door into the backyard, the blossoming garden it was enclosed by, with the brightest flowers and neatest vegetable rows, amongst delicate green vines climbing a wooden fence.

"So you like it here," he said.

The woman nodded, smiling vaguely.

"I do," she replied.

And he could tell, by the way she looked at their painted walls and framed photographs, at their cupboard and sink and silver refrigerator, that she was satisfied. And she wasn't unsteady as she had been when they'd known each other for a while; she was slender as she was when they had first met, and she looked straight ahead. Then at a photograph on the staircase.

"So... your father's doing well?" she asked.

"Yes, very well. Better than he has been in years. I don't know what that means, but... you know. As long as he's... ha_... content... with his life."

"Yeah."

"That's all that really matters now."

The young woman nodded. Damir stared at the picture of Amira and John, the one in front of a café. Though they were almost laughing, their eyes were still open, each gaze fixed on the other, in full attention, full engagement.

"I... I stopped taking meds a few months ago... I just... they weren't helping anymore. I tried all these different prescriptions, and I started feeling awful all the time, sick. I couldn't take it anymore."

She was still looking at the wall as she spoke to him.

"It was hard at first, but... I think I'm okay now. I've been able to handle... him. And it's not like before," she said, taking in a sharp breath, and biting her lip. The young woman hurried up her short staircase. He had never seen her so restless before, at least not for a while.

She returned with an old, familiar photograph.

"I... I don't blame myself anymore, you know that... It is hard... seeing him, though. But... it isn't like before."

Her voice was quiet, like he had heard when he had first met her.

Damir took a step toward her, then another, and when he was beside her, he saw him. That image that had haunted the woman for so many years. He'd seen the picture before, but it was different this time. Somehow stronger with its age. And he didn't want to question the woman's decision. He there were layers to her decisions that were hard to perceive for anyone without her experience. So he did not press.

"If it makes things better for you, then you did... the right thing," he replied, intentionally vague with his use of "better" and "right". He wanted to connect with her, as he had long before. But it was not like before.

"I hope so," she replied, barely audible.

And then he heard the buzzing of a cell phone's vibration, and Amira dashed to the kitchen table, answering with a slight smile.

"Hello, hon... Oh, I see... Ah, no, that's alright. Alright. Love you, babe... I know, I know... I'll be waiting. Alright, love you, see you later."

Though her flash of joy had faded, it still remained, only minutely darkened by the obvious disappointment of her call.

"John's going to be gone a while," she said. "I guess his connecting flight was cancelled, so it'll be another day..."

Damir nodded, with the greatest sympathy. He tried now to keep his words from running, but they were too ready to sprint.

"Have you spoken to John about this?" he said, gesturing to the photograph now sitting on the counter.

She bit her lip, shaking her head.

"No... I think he knows, though. I think he understands."

The young man nodded again, pausing before determining his next response.

"May I use the bathroom?" he started.

"Sure, it's down the hall from the guest room," she said, gesturing around the corner of the oddly placed staircase. Once in the bathroom, just as expertly decorated as any other space in or around the house, he pulled out the white canister of pastel, round caplets, and swallowed them with sink water. He used his sleeve to wipe his face, and, per usual, did not look at himself in the mirror, or attempted to avoid his reflection. He did what he was supposed to have gone there for, and washed his hands, attempting to grow accustomed to the low-pressure water of virtually everything in the house.

But of course, he caught himself in the mirror before walking out of the dimly, but overall, sufficiently lighted restroom.

The skin beneath his eyes was dark, his face, somewhat gaunt, in need of shaving, his hair in need of cutting. His clothes did not match the house, nor Amira's fashionably eclectic dress. He recalled the day he'd seen himself as both old and young, as far too old and ready to fall apart. Just about eight years ago. He remembered all the uncertainty of those years, of his father's failing health, and his own condition reflected in the man's, all his months of insomnia by work, and the many graduation celebrations he'd attended out of obligation.

He looked almost the same as back then, but with the addition of eight long years. As quickly as he could, he left the room with its clear, reflective glass, and turned out the light with dark triumph.

Amira stood at the counter, her wineglass empty since his absence.

"Damir, what are you doing here?" she said, seriously.

"What do you mean, 'what am I doing here?' I dropped off a little wedding present for you, and you invited me in."

"But... why didn't you just se_"

"Why? Mail's impersonal, you see. Would you have preferred a congratulatory e-card?"

"No! Why do you have to be so... sarcastic? You weren't like this when_"

"When what? It has 'been a while' since then, hasn't it?"

She quieted.

"Why did you ask me in here, violate your diet or cleanse or whatever the hell else you do with your phony fiance, and tell me all this private information and then announce all whatever about his flight and_"

"Damir, what are you even thinking? I just wanted to catch up with you, that's it, that's all! And I thought you said you were happy for me!"

"Happy! Did you seriously beli_"

"Yes, yes, I did!"

"No, you didn't. You wa_"

"Don't say it."

"You wanted to believe it."

"You're being so, immensely immature."

"What do you expect, Amira? I'm not like you and Vegan World Savior here."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"

"Maybe something to do with the lack of extra letters at the end of my name."

"So you're not educated, is that what this is about? God, Damir, would you stop being such a G-dd-mn fatalist_"

"Or that I don't buy damn freaking ten-thousand dollar toilets. Or have a G-dd-mn wine cellar in my basement. Or a damn basement anymore."

"It's about money, then? Do you want something like this? Is th_"

"No, damnit, it's not about money. It's not about school. I would never want to live in place like this! How do you freaking live here? How do you put up with this... this... pretentious, artificial place? How can you even_"

"Then what is it, Damir, what is your problem? What_"

"What do you think? I came five damn hours here to see you, and_"

"Damir, you need to stop thinking like this. You have to stop being so... so angry at the world for everything that's happened to you and_"

"Amira, I'm not angry at the world, okay, it's not the world I'm angry with, okay? I know I couldn't help the accident or my parents or your brother, I realize that, alright? You're not the only person who can reach 'self-awareness'."

"Get out, Damir. If you're just going to_"

"No, Amira. This place is so... it would be so good if it were actually good. If it wasn't just loaded with conspicuous consumption."

"Leave."

"Just tell me why you put up with it. You're not a fake, Amira, I never knew you to be fake."

"If you're just going to talk to me like that, why should I even answer?"

"Now who's being immature."


"This is my house, Damir, I don't have to let you stay."


"Just answer my question, and I'll be out of here for the rest of your life."


She swallowed, and looked at the floor, and finally replied, resolute in her answer.


"I like this, Damir. I like this life. I love helping out my world. I love spending my days and weeks and months with someone who is so passionate about the planet and its inhabitants. I don't even miss milk or  meat anymore. I like this place, and I love my garden, and I love studying and going to farmer's markets and I love the fact that I'm going to get married soon, and that we're going to share a name and travel more and more. I like this life. I love it. I love John. That's why I 'put up' with this place. I love it. It's the way I've wanted to live for years."

The young man and the woman with the glittering ring stood silent for a long while after her words. They seemed to resonate around the openly planned house.

He plodded on toward the door, his halted step worse than when he had entered, and physical pain was just as evident as it had been before. Yet there was new weight to the passing through the doorway, as he did so now.

"Wait, Damir," the young woman said, swiftly coming up behind him, her steps taking milliseconds while his were much longer.

"Yes?" he said, planted temporarily on her doorstep, back facing the house. He needed a higher dosage. That usually did something.

"Just... don't do anything stupid, okay? You can call... or... whatever. If you want."

He shrugged.

"I hope you always love your life, Amira," he replied. "Bye."

"Damir..."

He went on.

"See you later, Damir!" she shouted after him.

And the young man lumbered on, gripping a white canister of painkillers. 

Sunlight: "Interruption"

Waking to a countenance of serenity near him, eyes still closed in a glorious sleep, the young man felt a gentle smile come upon his face. There had never been a day in his life as peaceful, as lovely as the one they had spent. And so it seemed to continue.

The two awakened to their impressively quiet street in the town of their eternal youth. The worst was an icy sidewalk pressed with a sudden warm day. Now their troubles seemed gentle streams, draining away. Their morning was filled with the scent of coffee and the sound of laughter. Even when silence came upon them, they experienced a comfort that hadn't seemed possible for years.

And their weekend lasted in such a way, and neither longed for its conclusion. But as the work week began, they still felt the warmth of the other; both came home for the other, with their same kind words. Any quarrels were insignificant, never threatening; if ever so, the threat of a heart's harm was quelled by their final understandings.

Each night they spent together, even if the other stayed awake in work for hours longer. His presence was enough for her. Her presence, enough for him.

So onward they proceeded with their days, never truly away...

The near-man stood outside the door. He merely had the gift he'd forgotten to send. There wasn't an excuse for his actual presence; he could have still used the mail. He could have remained at home as usual, asserted further his role as Dutiful Son.

Yet he stood at the door, recycled cardboard box in hand. There was not a card attached.

"Oh, hello Damir! I wasn't expecting you for a while..." the woman answered. Her light blue eyes seemed to show a surprise and joy he had never seen before. The band around her finger glittered in the midday sun.

"Sorry," he replied, timidly, trying desperately to match her excited expression. "I brought you a gift..."

"Damir, thank you," she replied.

"I didn't look at the registry or anything, so..."

"That's totally fine, I'm sure..."

"You can open now if you want, I mean_"

"I... I should wait for John, probably..."

"Yeah. Probably."

They paused.

"Do you want to come in?"

The invitation evoked honest surprise in the young man. He had expected to hand off the gift and leave, though the next bus would not be for hours. The wait had become his routine, however, for nearly every occasion. He felt the usual sticking and piercing, and strange aching, of the typical effort of moving about for longer than an hour.

"Sure," he replied, and so stepped inside.

The house contained dark, well-maintained wooden floors, a mostly open floorplan, furnished with a flawless combination of antique and modern pieces, the glass-topped coffee table expertly littered with magazines for science, ecological friendliness, vegetarian recipes, occasionally juxtaposed with neo-literary novels with absurd titles, along with the addition of the box. The place seemed a showroom, with the small kitchen's divider from living room being a movable bar-like island.

"Do you want anything?" she said. "John and I are on this diet right now for his next race, so we're trying to keep away from alcohol for a while..."

"No, I'm fine. Thanks for the offer though."

He was quick to respond in this instance, when he was often not.

"Do you want some water? I'll just pour a couple of glasses of water."

The young woman had never been so chatty, at least in his experience. He watched as she pulled out a filter-pitcher from the narrow and minimally stocked refrigerator, taking two abnormally ornate glasses denoting a visit to the East Coast, from a cupboard just above the sink and poured each to the same level. The young man finally sat down on a sofa which could only either be over fifty years old or purchased new the week before, just as the second homeowner took a seat next to him, taking two coasters from the far corner of the coffee table to set their glasses upon. He reached into an inside coat pocket, almost involuntarily, feeling the small canister of pain-sparing medication, in an attempt to settle his tensing nerves. It was there, as it typically was.

"How have you been?" the woman began, after a sip of water, and a gaze at an empty wall. A laptop sat upon a desk where most would put their television, envelopes of internet-rented DVD's beside it. An ancient, restored shelf held more books and uncommon films, beside the desk.

He wanted to be honest. He drank the filtered tap water, and kept drinking it, as if it were something else. The curtains, hand-sewn, perhaps? were held wide open.

"I don't know," he replied, borderlining on flippant, shrugging. He watched as the woman stared ahead, then into her glass.

"Damir, if you're not willing to have a convers_"

"Amira, we never 'small-talk'. Not since the first day we met."

"It's been a long time since the_"

"Has it now?" he said, his voice rising.

She stood, taking their glasses back placing them in the sink, before opening a locked cabinet below the sink. She pulled out a dark bottle, with a foreign label, and pulled out a stout snifter, pouring a caramel liquuid to a fourth, and took a sip, almost wincing in its recent unfamiliarity.

"That's some real commitment you have there, Amira," he muttered under his breath.

"Look, you can leave, you can get out of here right now, if you just keep_"

"Alright, alright... I'm sorry..."

"God," she said, exasperated.

She drank more, but slower than the first sip. He approached the kitchen, standing beside the island with its near empty glass and dark foreign bottle. The woman glared at him for a moment, before sighing, and turning toward the cupboard with its glasses.

"You sure you should be drinking? Don't you... don't you need to drive home?" she said, as she pulled out a glass identical to hers.

He took a moment before replying, before deciding to bite his tongue. Perhaps something of value could come to this "conversation".

"No, no it should be fine. I took the bus."

"Are you sure? No interference with medications or anything, or..." she said, as she refilled hers and inadvertently paused at his.

"I promise you, it is fine, Amira."

As soon as she set down the bottle, the two seemed to race to drink, but wound up synchronized with their modest sips.

"You took the bus four hours from_" the woman began.

"Yeah."

"The nearest bus stop is five miles away."

"Your point?"

"Nothing."

"Anyway. What were we talking about?"

"How... how are you doing?"

He paused to stare at the liquid in his glass, darker and richer than the thin, vaguely cucumber-flavored water he had forced down his throat earlier.

"You first," he urged his old friend.

"I've been doing well," she began, attempting to mask her deliberation, the calculations conducted in her head as to what aspects of marital bliss she felt comfortable with exposing.

"You have a nice house," he noted superfluously.

"Thanks."

They each drank, at once.

"John's been doing well at work. I'm getting... close to finishing up my degree."

She had double-majored in Botany and Environmental Science. Completing her master's degree in Environmental Science, he recalled.

"Great."

"Mhmm."

She poured them each more, as they had drank between speaking. They were silent for a few moments, each within his and her own mind. Considering attacks and peacemaking plans and wondering anxiously and painfully about the other's life and the utter dangers of treading such fragile ground.

Damir stared at the perfect floor, just worn enough to prove lived upon, but just clean enough to seem untouched.

"How... how is everything with you and John?" he began, feeling a new stabbing sensation with the words slipping from his mouth. And the anticipation of its answer.

He watched her light up again, as she had at the door, without her endearing surprise.

"We're doing very well. He's... he's really passionate about what he does, Damir. I'm... I'm so proud of him. To be with him. I mean, I love him... I've never known someone so deeply passionate about what they care about. And he's always so honest. And yet so optimistic. I... I honestly think he could save the world, at least some of it..."

The young man nodded at whatever moments deemed appropriate, as he filled his glass the second time.

"I'm... happy for you," he finally said, feeling that stabbing turn into twisting. It wasn't a knife, but a thousand shards of glass, piercing his gut, his chest.

The wife obliged the man with her response.

"That... that means a lot, Damir. Thank you."

Short story: "Projection" (rated "T+"; based on an old, unused plotline; also, potential poor-writing warning))

((Based on former roleplay between Leah K. and I. Forgive me for the potentially poor quality of this...))

I stared out at the hall, with the doors that looked just like the doors of my own home. I ignored every number on those doors, like I would if I were home. Our buildings were two blocks away; our apartment had been #510, and her one of her ex's was #412. The building was only slightly nicer than ours.

I knocked at the man's door. He was hardly a man, just past his twenties, barely crawling into his thirties. Like she had been. I knew he was home. Their last fling had only happened a couple of months ago.

It felt like my organs had been torn out and turned to gravel. I was half-heartedly coated in cement, trying so desperately to maintain the exterior I had grown accustomed to. But I was raw. My blood was lava.

"Who is... it?" I heard the man's muffled groan; the walls, I knew, were thin. He had either been sleeping or drinking, crying, maybe. Or all of them.

I wanted to hate him. I knew he'd stopped drinking years ago; he was someone's father now, with the pretty, tough redhead he'd been with since before he'd ever met my mom, over 10 years. I wanted to hate him, to blame him. It would be easy for me to blame him. But I knew that he wasn't to blame, at least for this.

It didn't matter how close he was to the mother of his child. I knew why he was doing this.

"Jackie. Open the door!" I replied, louder than necessary, forcing the most authority in my voice I could muster.

He listened. He was, at the very least, very hungover.

"Why are you here?" he mumbled, squinting at the hallway's dim light. There weren't any on inside their apartment. The girlfriend and their child appeared to be absent.

"What the hell are you doing?" I said.

"Wh_... You just show up here and start_"

"I can't... I cannot believe you. Doing this to your own kid. You know how this stuff f--ks you up! The kid's not even... not even a f--king year old, and you're already starting this up again?! You didn't even have to carry the thing! Why are you doing this?!"

I leaned forward. "Why?! You're gonna mess her up, too. She's gonna watch you, she's gonna think that's just how you deal with shit, you just drink your problems, or you take 'em out on someone else! You think that's okay?!"

I knew he didn't.

"You can't do this! You can't MAKE her terrified of you! You can't do that! That's not how you raise a kid, you don't do that shit in front of them, you don't! God, why can't you just..."

He stood in the doorway, unmoving, his glazed stare fixed on the floor.

"Just STOP! Stop before you make this... worse, for... EVERYONE."

I thought of her, the way she left so quickly when she was headed over here. Two blocks away. I thought of how she didn't even seem to think of much else when she saw him. But I still found the plastic bags and all the powder. I still went to the other side of town to do the same f--king thing. I hated myself for it. I hated her for it.

I hated her.

"She was complicated, Jackie," he finally replied, before walking into the dark, the door still open. I heard something draining down a sink.

"Clearly, you knew her so, so well," I replied, acid on my lips as I entered, closing the door behind me, flipping on a lightswitch. The man winced.


In the light, I see the effect she had on him. There was no confidence, arrogance, desire about him, not any longer. He was absent, empty, dark circles underneath his eyes. I felt myself turn to stone, jagged, piercing through my chest.

"I know we were screwed up. Extremely screwed up. But she... I had another life. With her. She didn't seem to age."

"And that was idiotic."

"I know."

"I hate her. You know what? I... I hate her, I hate her, I, God, it's almost a relief. It's almost..." I gasped suddenly. I hated myself more than usual, as I started to cry, my fists clenched, eyes squeezed shut. I looked like her. If she were my age, we could've been twins. I did what she did. I hated her.

"She was my mother... she was supposed to... to do all that crap right... tell me to stay home, or something, or work on school or... I don't even know. Tell me to do all this... do it right, tell me, 'don't do what I did,' and... just... mean it..."

He faced the sink, grasping the sides, shoulders shaking.

"I know, Jackie, I know, damnit, I know exactly what you mean, okay? I know! I'm f--king terrified, kid! I know. I don't ever want... I don't want... to become..."

The man suddenly ungrasped the sink, and I'd expected to see his finger's imprinted into the metal, but they were not. And then the fridge was opened, and he pulled out packs of beer, set it on the counter, then opened the cupboards, and took out the liquor. And then he started opening them, and it seemed to pain him, but he poured one can, then a bottle, then more, and he didn't take a sip, and he was quivering, some spilling to the floor.

Her vices had been these and more. And he was pouring them away. I was stunned, and the piercing grew in intensity. I knew what this meant; looking back, I don't think even I would have been capable of what he was doing. And in those moments, I could no longer hate him. I had known the whole time that I wasn't angry with him, or even my mother, for letting her life become addiction, for letting it kill her.

I had been killing myself the whole time, as I followed seamlessly in her footsteps.

I helped him drain the rest, wishing I could get the dollars back that he'd spent on it. His almost-wife came home, with a meager set of groceries and a baby in a carseat. I knew she wasn't the type to cry; I'd seen her a few times before, and she had put up with way too much, but this time, she did. She even thanked me for coming.

I left then, knowing better than to expect or even hope that this cathartic gesture actually meant anything for the rest of the young couple's lives.

But I returned to a cemetery at the edge of town, taking a seat by the stone, before standing. And then, I pulled back my fist, and unleashed it, like a spring, and took my other arm to do the same, until I couldn't feel my hands anymore. I let the stone pierce me; I let myself bleed, for once.

Story beginning based on a dream I had yesterday morning.

I look out at my front yard, at the electric green grass, and the box of "free stuff" I had set on the lawn for passerby's to graze from. My chin is in my hands, elbows on my knees, a position once familiar to me when I was a gangly child, several years ago. I watch as a familiar friend, her hair obscuring her face, approaches my house. And then I spot her eyes, wide and red with tears. I stand, racing toward her.

"What's wrong? What happened, are you alright?"

She ignores me, shaking as she crouches to pick out a tattered copy of a former favorite book of mine. She bites her lip, another tear running down her face. I check the watch I wear, and find that it is not even two o'clock yet. School isn't even out, and she's here, right here, standing above my box of things I just threw out. And crying.

"What's going on, Darica?" I ask, putting a hand on her shoulder. She just closes her eyes again, to blink back more tears, before tucking the book in her already-stuffed backpack. For reasons that entirely escape me, she begins to run, toward her house at the end of our neighborhood. Her house.

I stand, stunned, for a moment, before racing after her.

"You won't catch her," I hear a voice from... in front of me?

Out steps a man wearing khakis and a green sweater, ridiculous clothing for the weather, with peppery brown hair and knowing eyes. My uncle. My dead uncle.

"Oh my God, I think... I'm crazy, aren't I? I'm hallucinating. Oh my... I... I should go call 911 or something," I begin to ramble on.

"No, Cy. You're very sane. It's why you're here right now."

"What do you mean?"

This would have been an utterly tragic and horrific moment, the sight of my dead uncle, had I not been so utterly swept away by the strange reaction of my friend. It wasn't so strange; we didn't always want comfort when we cried, but she just came and took my book, granted, out of a "free stuff" box, without an explanation, as I watched her. Now that I thought about it, I wasn't in school either.

"Let's just say, the two of us have more in common than you likely would have thought possible."

"What do you mean?"

This wasn't what I thought it meant. It couldn't be. I was only 16, after all. And I wasn't unhappy or a reckless driver or anything common and ridiculous like that. I didn't have some awful illness, I don't recall falling downstairs, or consuming anything poisonous or any sort of drug I hadn't tried before, but...

"It's exactly what you think. Sorry, Cy. It's an unpleasant thought, I will agree."

"No."

"Yes."

 "What?!"

"I know you just want me to say it, Cy. It won't help much. I'm sure you've figured it out well enough."

"I don't want you to say... it. I... I don't... I don't wanna hear any of this, I'm gonna... I'm gonna go take a nap. Up in my room. I... Must be sleep deprivation or something," I muttered, as I turned from the man.

But he stood in front of me again.

"Try as you may, it's hard to sleep when you're here, Cy. You don't sleep much when you're d_"
"Don't."

"Alright, I'll say it, because you're clearly one of those who needs to hear it before you can snap out of this... this... utterly pointless denial. You're dead, Cy."

I sat back down on the grass. It didn't phase through me or anything. I was wearing shorts, because it was hot, and I... I felt the grass. This had to just be...

"It's not a dream, it's not a nightmare. It just is."

Sunlight: "Quiet" (listening to: "Safe and Sound"-Taylor Swift feat. The Civil Wars)

Under one year ago...

The young woman faced her window, hugging her knees to her chest, the young man at the opposite edge of her bed. From outside came a summer wind, giving her curtains an appearance of inhaling and exhaling. She closed her eyes, her soft, slender profile evident in the slant of a streetlight reflecting into her room. Her neighborhood was quiet, excepting the wind's lazing breath. The young man broke the near-silence gently, hesitantly.

"I'll miss you," he murmured, stating the most obvious thought among the many unraveling in his mind. Thoughts that pleaded, "I need you, to stay, don't leave, not now, or stay closer, what of all that we spoke about before? What about then, what about now, what about later, isn't it possible there could be more? More than even this?"

"It won't be long. I'll call," she replied.

"Will you? I trust you, I really do, but it would be so easy, Amira. So easy to just stop. How do I know you won't just stop calling, or writing, emailing, whatever way we've meagerly communicated these past months?"

"Okay."

She slowly uncurled her shielding arms from around her, shifting toward the center of the narrow queen bed, and slid her hand toward his. The wind exhaled, a cool gust, the curtains opening wide, bathing the two in goldenrod light. He saw her eyes, clear, a promise within them.

"I don't want to lose you. Can you at least tell me whether there's a chance for this to go on? I don't understand, I have never been this close to any human being, not once, not until now. Please. I know I'm rather pathetic, and if you heard me plead and beg like this, you would shudder away, you would look at the walls, and then you would run, but please. Just give me this one assurance."

"It's college, Damir. It's school. I won't be too far away, just a few hours. I'll come down when I can," she said, beside him now, her voice confident, just above a whisper. She waved away the curtains, before they could obscure their faces. He rarely had the chance to see her so close, the slight, gentle curve of her chin. And he saw her eyes as much as he could. They were beautiful, even when seeing what was no longer there.

"Okay."

He deliberated a moment, before speaking again.

"I should have a better graduation gift for you by then."

Her lips opened with a smile, then offered her gift of laughter. He wanted to hear that, all of his life. He wanted to wake to that sound.

"You'd better," she replied, smirking as she brought her face to his. He felt her breathe as he did, a moment, before his lips touched hers, closing his eyes as her hair brushed his, bringing his hand to rest on her cheek.

"I love you, Amira. We don't ever say that, and I know why we don't, and I'm alright with that. But I want you to know. I won't ever say those words because of what we both fear, of the knowledge of grief forced to us through the price of pain."

((*concept of last line conceived by another writer and blogger.))

Sunlight "songfic" w/o lyrics (listened to: Going to Georgia, Bixby Canyon Bridge, Casimir Pulaski Day, Amsterdam); trigger warning; also, bad writing.

((Credits to Leah for originally roleplaying some of this scene with me.))

The road was long and clean, as it usually was. Yet the clouds were plump and gray, promising rain. Beautiful, the day. He stepped out from the edge of the small town, staring out at the vehicles on the highway passing beside it. The ride from his city had been but a short two hours. And two hours from his former home, he would finally accomplish his best, last act.

The first car flew by, at 70 miles an hour, and he cursed his hesitance. He was not excited by the thought of harming another by his life, but he had so many times. The stranger would feel awful, he was certain. But perhaps someone would convince him that they were only granting a wish, a great wish. Providing transportation to elsewhere, as a vehicle usually did.

He should have driven himself. It would have saved his conscience from knowing what he was doing to somebody else. But it was a little late now.

Another vehicle was approaching. He would have to be fast. He wasn't good at being fast. He would have to try, though.

His heart was racing, in tune with this vehicle's speed, and he watched as it came closer. He had but a short window between the driver's sight of him and his speed. And even if he saw... 65 miles, perhaps he would just... he didn't want to break much of theirs...

And so the next step came easily, and he felt lightheaded as he approached the lane's center from its side, feet off gravel onto cracking asphalt; thunder wasn't sounding, but he saw lightning above him. He anticipated the pain and loss as the vehicle approached, but soft, quick thunder sounded, the shriek of a woman, and then,

the loud wwshhhhhhhhhhhh of the car, as its tires sped on past him. He hit the asphalt, toppled by someone nearly half his size, caramel hair on his face, and blueangryfrightened eyes, unclear in his dizzied head. And he hardly heard, as she shouted, the rain of her tears upon his face in the other lane, as they lay, a mess on the other side of a dotted yellow line.

"Whatthehellwereyoudoing,myGod,Damir,myGod,please..."

She squeezed him, a human vice of slender, strong arms, and thunder sounded in the distance and thunder sounded and three miles away, someone was speeding, speeding down toward them...

"Please, please, Damir, why, please... don't..."

And rain from the sky, not salty, started to drip down on the living and dead below them, dripping upon the two in the road. So the man in his vehicle, coming home from a Saturday's work began to rush, wanting home, longing for the company of his family.

He slowly tried to take her from him, but she held tighter; he had never known her strength until now. And he took her back for a moment, before peeling her as gently as possible from him, and she was now beside him. He didn't want her here, for this, no, he couldn't...

And the man in his car turned on his windshield wipers as he approached the town he lived in.

"No, Damir," she whispered, grasping his arm.

And the man approached, at a steady 67, hurrying, knowing the exit's approach, but still pressing the gas, 68, 69, 70 miles per hour...

And the young man turned his aching head, his ears picking up the scrape of rubber against wet ground, and he took the girl as she had just taken him, shoving both toward an edge, a tornado of man and woman twisting into a deep ditch as a car sped just past them, narrowly avoiding the sweep of tragic, whirling wind.

The couple lay bruised and scraped and coated with new mud, both hearts racing, both heartbeats a realization. In their fall, the woman's ring was coated with mud, her arms and knuckles scraped by pavement and sharp grasses. Both were aching, though some pains were sharp, as they lay, poured on by rainwater, unable to catch their breath. Something was broken, but each was alive.

"Don't ever..." she barely rasped, closing her eyes as she winced, as tears fell anew with the rain.

"I won't..." he replied, tasting saltwater and blood from something cut.

Blotches of purple appeared on their limbs, and one held the other, the other held one, and the two felt their pounding heads and racing hearts pumping blood, and they closed their eyes, comforted by darkness and warmth, waiting.  

Poem: "The Intellectual"

((Note: Well, I love my friends. All of them. But... alas, this poem... needed to be vented out.))
From those eyes,
who is the Intellectual?
Newlywed, single, childless?
All the intelligence spread out on the page,
all the books read out of the mouth,
All the words from the mind upon the screen.

Who is he, or she, or who are they?
Witty, funny, biting,
Calm, laid-back,
enraged at only what deserves rage.
Older, younger,
with master's degrees?

Shelves stocked, stocked, stocked,
with the works of
Others like themselves,
role models,
books like lovers to them.

Who is the Intellectual?
Who is the man or woman who pretends to be one?
What qualifies an individual
as intellectual?

How do you, friend,
determine your intelligence,
in light of theirs?
How do we, friends,
turn off our judgment,
and listen?

Eight years, ten years,
apart,
we are,
from those who teach, and yet,
claims of knowing more.

Who is the intellectual?
Turn off
the judging heart and listen.
Forget the loss of our philosopher,
turn off your judging heart,
and learn.

Sunlight: Unanswered (otherwise, "The infamous church scene")

((The title is only due to the fact that I've attempted to write this scene approximately... too many times. And by this, usually by thinking about it and never even getting more than a couple of sentences in. And all of those sentences weren't what I was going for. Let's hope these are.))

The young man and his father took to the very last row, for the rest of the sanctuary was packed. Weaving to the front would have proven difficult for the two, though the spaces between each segment of seats was wide enough for their passage. Yet the air within seemed to suffocate them.

Surely it was not the people within. Not the throng of voices singing honestly of praises to their God, of their aching sin and pleading forgiveness for the falls they had taken. Not the youth with cellphones beneath their parents' eyes, and not the young and old with eyes aimed to the ceiling, or closed with deep emotion. Their air seemed breathable, even if thick. It wasn't with the choir and their electric guitar and piano. Not with the woman soloist, her rich voice mingling with the near-200 at the foot of the three-stepped platform. It wasn't in the powerfully read verses of love and "life-in-the-next." When all sat back down, it wasn't the pastor's collective greeting or his request of the offering. It wasn't in the band standing again, then the man proceeding to give his message of "Keeping One's Eyes Heavenward."

No, it was in his face. His eyes. The familiarity.

It was in the seats, the rafters high above, the lights and where they aimed. It was the few familiar faces in the crowd. It was the kindness from the ushers, the greeting-one-another's before "worship".  The smiles that seemed genuine, and even moreso, those that seemed forced.

Such things rendered the men to silent tears, in the back, beneath the balcony. Such a world that wasn't theirs, perhaps not yet, perhaps not ever, that the man in the front with his light green shirt and dark green tie and his black dress pants. His little microphone, trying to give a congregation hope.

He acknowledge pain and loss and grief; "But ultimately, there is Joy in Christ! This life is merely temporary..."

---
"We should go to church today," the older man said to his son, facing his window, the son just behind him.

The young man looked at the floor. Perhaps they should go. They'd gone quite a few times near the end... they were the only people who said that they could make it. They had their little groups "pray for them."

"I... I don't know. Maybe," he murmured.

"It's been... a long time."

"Yes. Very long."

---
They'd dressed in black that time before this one. They had worn it, dark hair natural on the son, and then suit jackets and black pants and shoes, the only thing light being his father's skin and hair. The rest had dressed in a similar fashion. And the songs were just as bright and beautiful, but there were merely more tears than this.

Nearly a year had past. Each man felt the date pressing upon him, like a boulder on his chest. They had gone out of duty; neither had been taught this as the absolute, appropriate response, but they had believed it was, at least, this morning they had. But the place seemed to hold less answers than hoped for. It only reminded each of unhealed wounds.

That same man at the very front of the large room had delivered a similar message the last time they had attended. Why had they come again, this family of two, once three? Bleak, it was, but each felt it shouldn't have been. The hope that those around them felt, it should have reached them also.

"...with that knowledge, I know I will see her again, my little girl..." the man in front also, nearly, brought to tears. As he shared with them his personal story, connecting so deeply with all who felt loss. But were not lost, as he had said.

The young man and his father, however connected to the man in front, in that they had also experienced loss, they failed to understand his entire assurance. So uncompromising and yet so genuine he seemed standing on that short platform with his tiny microphone. And the man and his son did not perceive the faces of the others around them.

---
"Mr. Pax, it's been quite a while since you've been here. We're so glad you could make it this Sunday," a man waiting for his wife told the other, the man in his chair, waiting for his son standing outside the building, swallowing their pain pills and lighting his second-ever cigarette.

"Yes. It has been a while. We're sorry we haven't been... here... we've just_"

"I understand_"

And for a moment, the man may have believed it so,

"_your health is not..."

"No, not... quite well. Nor Damir's. But... well, we decided it would be a good... morning to attend."

He hesitated with his use of the word "good".

"Yes, yes, that's quite alright."

A woman with straight black hair, a young boy asleep in one arm and swiftly capturing the hand of a small child about to yet again chase after a toy, smiled nervously at the man before Mr. Pax.

"It looks like it's about to go," the man said, with a small smile which suggested the man before him understood his urgent plight. And the other father did his best to smile back.

The other took to his wife and children, scooping up the toddling girl, who reached toward the floor. Her mother swiftly swept up the toy and handed it to her, managing to leave the little boy asleep.
---
The younger man felt nauseous. There was nothing good about these things, other than their ability to kill. And if he were to die, he'd rather die very, very quickly. So he ignored all the unpleasant responses, the glares, the glances, the concern, of the passing individuals of the churchgoers leaving their building, wishing to finish this once and then to never smoke again. It was not "for him", he supposed. He was not one to socially experiment, and he was not longing for either disdain or worry; rather, he simply found himself apathetic. Dulled and numbed, which he now preferred.

Eventually, he opened the door for his father and they proceeded to their vehicle. When they arrived at home, he looked at the near-full pack of cigarettes and regretted their minimal use. He wanted to throw them away. He wanted to tell them that he didn't need their brand of airless, pungent death, but he knew that someone else would put them to use. Their destructive use.
---
When he returned home early that morning, from the endless, wild night, he set the pack on the bench he had once fallen asleep on with a friend. Where he'd told her of his once-newfound, now permanent, grief. He laid it there for whomever, hoping "whomever" wouldn't be a child. With this, he went home to sleep two hours, to wake up and clean floors.